The dragon actually appeared in an earlier run of IA, not this one. It happened months ago. And I thought I did a clean install; I uninstalled several other mods before installing IA. But I found an item called the Jade Burial Sword, it's terribly overpowered (2d12+5 damage, plus several immunities a dispel on hit effect), and now that I've looked up the file in DLTCEP, I think it might not actually be an IA item, and it's just some leftover from a mod that somehow did not get installed. Or is it really an IA item? I don't remember where I got it.
As for the spider encounter, I didn't realize there were three battles requiring three clicks. That's probably what happened; I didn't finish the full encounter and hence the entrance did not reappear.

As for the Planar Sphere limitation, it actually makes sense from the in-game perspective, since you traveled to another plane, which doesn't happen in Firkraag's lair or the Temple Ruins.

As for the Temple Ruins or Firkraag's lair, maybe you're required to beat every enemy in that area, but not the whole dungeon. One of the reasons I had to reload in an earlier run, which I did not finish, was that I could not kill Firkraag and found the exit to be missing. In retrospect, the missing exit might be because I didn't clear out all the enemies in the area. Or maybe it was just a bad installation. I don't remember how I installed it; that run was also several months ago.

Thanks for the clarification.

Katage, I think the very first thing you need to do is to uninstall the entire game, install it afresh and follow the installation instructions accurately before starting a new game. With an incorrect installation, you will keep encountering bugs and will never know which mod is responsible for which. None of the problems you have so far described would have happened if you had a correct installation.

One more important point: Never use Shadowkeeper for editing your game. It is known to create random bugs. Shadowkeeper is good for viewing items and spells but not for editing purposes.

Of course, you are free to play however you wish, but if you are looking for technical support here, you need to play with a correct installation.

Pity that Shadowkeeper doesn't work well with IA. I screw around with SK a lot.

I didn't mean to ask for aid in using an improperly installed IA--that wouldn't be fair of me--I just wondered if it was a common problem. But thank you for letting me know.

It pretty much doesn't work well with anything. It has a potential screw your game no matter what kind of installation you're having. Whenever we encounter an odd bug or report from a player we always ask if there was Shadowkeeper involved.

I actually have seldom experienced issues with SK outside of IA. Usually it works as intended. Probably the main reason why I use it, though, is because the other means of screwing around with the game aren't available for me. CLUA appears inaccessible in Windows 8... much like Windows 7... and Windows Vista. It's been years and several computers since I've been able to use it, even if I install BG2 outside Program Files or Program Files (x86), edit the baldur.ini file correctly, or even disable UAC and try to uncheck "read only" in the BG2 directory. DLTCEP also hasn't let me edit anything, though I can still view stuff. Oddly, BGTutu has no such problems, nor do the other IE games.

On an unrelated note, I've often found it odd that enemies are so much more willing to exhaust their potions and scrolls than the player. The player always has another fight to win and hence has to conserve potions and scrolls and item charges, and even spells and innate abilities when resting is not an option. The enemy, however, only needs to fight the player once, and has no reason not to expend all of its potions, unless the player attacks once, flees, rests, and comes back, which I think is considered cheesy (it would actually be a little interesting if the enemy pulled that trick on me every once in a while). In any given battle, I have far more potions than the enemy, but given the need to save potions and gold for later battles, I often use them less often than the enemy. If I don't, the next fight will be harder, since enemies tend to drink potions more than they drop potions. If the enemy beats me, he likely triples his potion supply when he takes my stuff. From a realism perspective, one would think the average enemy party would be crammed with loot they were saving for future battles. As an adventurer, Samia would probably have a Dagger +1 or a few Shandon gems or a Ring of Protection +1 or a random scroll of Cold Protection, just from the work she'd have done getting into Firkraag's lair, and she would be saving that to sell after she killed me and went home to celebrate. Too bad that would make fights much too profitable for the player.

CluConsole commands are working perfectly for me and I use a laptop with Windows 7. Did you install BG2 into the main directory (like C:\Games\BG2) or under the Program Files directory? It works only properly if you install it the previous way. You have to give also full authorization to BG2 to run properly. Also, did you maybe not forget to switch on the debug mode of your BG2 install? without it Clua will not work.

The debug mode is on, according to the baldur.ini file, but I currently have it installed in the Program Files (x86) folder. I previously tried it in C, next to Program Files and Program Files (x86), and My Documents... but not C:\Games. Would that make a difference?

I think the difference is authorization. But I do not know the real background. Of course you do not have to put it under C:\Games, it can be any "normal" directory.

You can copy the baldur.ini from your installation into some temporary folder not located in x86, modifiy it, save it there, then copy it, paste it into your installation folder in x86 and answer yes to the question you get.

I can't remember exactly the procedure I used to get rid of x86 annoyance forever on my computer

I reinstalled BG2 into C:\Black Isle\BGII - SoA. Disabled UAC and tried to disable "read only" status for the new installation folder. Didn't happen. DLTCEP still doesn't work.

Deleted all my saves, apparently. Whatever. At least CLUA is working. That'll be convenient in the future. Still disappointed about DLTCEP. As for the lost saves... well, I actually just died in a no-reload, no-pre-buffs, roleplaying run of SCSII, so I didn't lose my current run. In the no-reload run, I made a point of only doing the things in the game that the characters would know to do (only casting buffs after scouting, going after the first quests we came across and reforming the party without considering late-game optimization), so my characters didn't know enough to delay the Planar Sphere until, say, 11th level for each character. Long story short, Lavok summoned a Planetar, it killed Viconia with raw damage and Minsc with a vorpal strike before I could hit it once, and the rest of the party got toasted by a Dragon's Breath spell. So that quest was over. No-reload run forbade trying again.

Circle of life.

Reloads are pretty important. PnP must be brutal.

I actually did a no-reload run of IWD2 and it wasn't so bad, mostly because I was resorting to every dirty trick in the book except for bard song stacking, though I only used two characters, neither of which was evil, which isn't supposed to be really possible in a HoF run. I guess for the run I just failed, I placed too many restrictions on myself, or at least picked the wrong necromancer to mess around with.

If you want to try IA then I suggest this time follow the installation instruction and do not install other mods (unless they are compatible with IA). I am pretty sure most of the bugs and strange effects will disapear from your game if you follow the installation rules of IA.

lol that's so many suggestions... especially with all those install problems

people like to make suggestions, but it's usually a better idea to simply give complaints and/or praise. To me, making a suggestion on something like this is like... reading a new book for the first time, liking it overall with the exception of a few things, and setting out to get those few things changed. And then for some reason, the author complies with all my suggestions, and then I read the book again, now the way I thought it should be. lol? The book will turn out to be much less enjoyable the second time around...

IMO, just surprise me.

With that being said. Summons play a much larger role in v6 compared to v5. I hate the new high frequency targeting algorithm. They lose their commands every second or so (early game healing up with dryads = WTF)... I realize this was implemented so the vampires and stuff would target more intelligently, but damn my summons just went full retard.

Currently reinstalling the entire game.

Crunk, I'm surprised that you were surprised by my suggestions. I don't expect the author of a book to make changes based on my opinion. Nor do I expect my suggestions here to be implemented, as I said earlier. That's why they're called suggestions. If I considered myself some expert on IA whose opinion needed to be heeded and whose ideas needed to be implemented, I would not have made suggestions; I would have been more forward with my opinion. More to the point, if I expected all my ideas to be implemented, I would not have called attention to my inexperience in the first place. It's like saying you heard something on Wikipedia. It might not be reliable, but that's why you should tell people where you got it--they'll know your information is not based on a scholarly source. Likewise, I think it was appropriate for me to make suggestions if I made it clear that I was not an experienced player. But maybe this is just semantics.

As a writer that hasn't had time for a writing workshop in 5 years (I've had college to attend to, and now grad school), I actually feel rather deprived of reader input, sage or no.

And I actually didn't have any install problems with this last run of IA, the run my suggestions were inspired by: the problems I experienced (the dragon, for example) occurred with earlier runs of IA using earlier versions of IA on earlier installations on BG2. I hadn't actually experienced any bugs with the last run of IA, since the missing exit thing was due to my not clicking on the statue three times, not because of a bad install. My memory tells me I used a clean install for the last run of IA, as the readme etc. advised, and I experienced no actual bugs to suggest I had done otherwise.

Hi again!
I hope that IA7 will be released ASAP and will be even better than v6

I was thinking of starting a new game, however there are some issues that still bother me(though nothing really vital):
-phosphorus is almost the only choice before underdark, every run has it forged, why not make a nice alternative?
-the game lacks nice spears, and since V7 concentrates on druids, I'd really appreciate to see them in use.
-I've never dared to create a paladin because of that frightening turn paladin(no one plays them!) what is more they can't even dual-class or achieve GM at any weapon. I'd love to see them reactivated in v7 (even 1 kit boosted to compensate the effects of TP, or an item/spell that prevents it for a while, or some interesting HLA's other than deva)

Good luck with the newest version!

Hi SparrowJacek



We all hope!



Reading this I just agree!
Thinking a bit about it Phosphorous has many tremendous qualities:
- available relatively soon
- +4 blunt weapon
- 24 STR bonus
- Is a weapon that makes it till end game (I mean I never regret having forged it!)

Based on my own way of playing and experience, Phosphorous is also key to win early (before Brynnlaw) key important fights (because of their loot):
- Founder of trademeet
- Samia and party
And with a spirit of challenge and the right party some quite hard fights before spellhold:
- Firkraag
- Teshal
- Umar
- Troll mound
- Guarded compound

In short, I agree on the idea but cannot figure any proposal (apart making it a hammer with same properties which is not what I would call an alternative)



In V7 druid should gain some specific weapons, nonetheless true that a nice spear available sooner might be nice



In fact I like undead hunters, even went once with a divine oriented party with 2 UH in it and could make it through (not EDE), even though turned sometimes!

I also plead for GM (in 2H swords and/or Longswords) for paladins, so big nod on this

Some items already prevent turning (can spoil you which ones I know of if you like) apart one of them (hard to obtain and late chapter 3 IIRC) confess they are available (very) late in the game

One boost I could figure for paladin would be improve casting, many ways to explore IMHO:
-one more spell per level,
- bonus to casting speed (1 or 2),
- specific spells (like mental equilibrium),
- extend spell to level 5 (having raise dead could make paladin a substitute to cleric/druid),

Idea to have interesting HLA is a good one too, for example what about a "Contact With God" offering 20% physical resist for some rounds ?

I've just started a new run, and got a nice(in my opinion ofc) idea:
All parties we encounter are do or die, and that means we just kill them they have same stats, same eq(almost, due to randomization, though I'm not sure that anyone in hostile parties uses these items...) and just wait in sewers or else for eternity... what about a party that wants to challenge us? They approach us for example somewhere in the beginning to fight, then:
1. after some are dead, they beg for mercy and we can let them go
2. after some of them are dead, the rest run away
3. some time after slaying them it turns out that they had cleric who didn't participate in the fight and resurrected them(we are the ONLY ones that use this spell in whole game! So why couldn't he do that too?(oh yeah, in 1. and 2. they also were resurected))

Then we meet them again somewhere else, better prepared, with higher stats/levels/better eq.

I'd love to have even 3 encounters with them, but just can't see why wouldn't we just slay every one of them during second fight...

Hmm... after writing this I'm thinking that it could even turn into a nice long quest/sequence of quests, where we help them get some items or something like that! Almost every party in the game seems a bit "flat" they have 1 talk before we kill them, why not giving this party some background? (certainly after obtaining this item they would use it in confrontation with our party)
Or even they could be possessed by a powerful demon/mage/lich or brought back to life to get revenge or something like that... There are many possibilities!


And side note: monk's amulet is made of 2 amulets +1 so why doesn't it have saving throws bonus?

It's a nice idea indeed, if only we had time and resources to implement it and many other great ideas.

> And side note: monk's amulet is made of 2 amulets +1 so why doesn't it have saving throws bonus?
It might be a design misconception or the simple reality that monks aren't that well-balanced for IA as of now. There was a plan to work on them as a part of the warrior strongold's re-haul, if that ever comes to be.